Journey to the Undead

My next vampire short story which takes place in the past, where my protagonist and his companions continue their journey, and a big mystery is unraveled that affects the present day characters.

A detached rotting smell permeated the cemetery as the night loomed heavy above.  Silence permeated the crevices of every tombstone and cross that sprouted upward out of the ground.  There was no fog or eerily mist or oncoming rain, as in matter of fact it was a clear night.  The sounds of crickets danced in the distance and the moon came in and out underneath a blanket of clouds.  Every once in a while, its glow highlighted the two men marching through.  One of the men sported a cowboy hat, very rustic in tone and wearing a brown duster jacket, the kind that Yankees wore when they farmed the fields so that they wouldn’t get bitten by the occasional tick or spider.  A large musket lumbered on his shoulder but there was something different about it, it had been modified with a long-pointed silver stake acting as the bayonet.

               The other man sported a pair of high brow glasses and had shaggy black hair that was slicked back.  A single backpack latched onto his shoulders and his right hand was a long piece of wood.  At the end it was shaved into a fine point which resembled a stake, and prickly vines came to its head, it was that of the blackthorn family shrub and the wood was made of ashen.  In his left hand was a handheld short crossbow gun and a single arrow carved from a rowan tree having a silver tipped bolt jolted out from the riser.

               Both men peered at each other momentarily and the one with the duster jacket pointed in the direction of the small mausoleum.  The other man nodded in agreement and they both headed in that direction.  The mausoleum was located up a small hill decorated in all the proper insignias, a brass cross and an ornate statue situated on its crescent peak.  They had been tracking at least one of them, the damned, good old-fashioned Nosferatu.  But the man wearing the glasses knew there had been more.  Over a month ago they hunted down a couple which led them to a bigger and more ferocious nest.  Crawling mindless specters, they were all carrying a grand vision.  Dr. Carter had engaged them to this location, he had been the brains of their small operation.

               The mausoleum appeared rank and fowl, a perfect breeding ground for these otherworldly creatures.  But the one wearing the glasses, Edward, had his own theories.  He understood that these creatures, those who he deemed bloodsuckers, were not otherworldly but obeyed the laws of nature quite scientifically.  They had the minds of insects; this he had concurred.  They acted like ants protecting the rest of the hill, all carrying out specific instructions, all of them obeying a much stronger hive master or in this case a nest.  He debunked that they had minds of their own, the ability of free will was still intact but something overrode those individualistic impulses.

               The one wearing the cowboy hat pried open the mausoleum door with a crowbar that Edward dug from his backpack.  He made sure his cattleman revolver was at the ready, he wasn’t taking any chances.  George knew what these infestations were but more specifically he knew what they were after, what their motivations had been, all their dirty little tricks they hid up their sleeves.  He saw these things when he confronted his brother, how his sister turned and killed his entire family, how some of them can transform into more hideous monstrosities.  And over the course of two years, he was no longer afraid.  He stared into the eyes of madness, and he no longer felt that fear.  As in matter of fact he grown accustomed to it, he realized and always thought to himself ‘Once you see it, you can never truly unsee it.’  He saw what was behind the mask of these unholy vermin and his fighting spirit to extinguish these bloodsucking pests off the face of the planet had never been so prevalent.

               They had the numbers, George, gave them that benefit of the doubt.  And when the door swung open to the mausoleum one of them bull rushed the confines of the entrance.  Edward stepped in with his long stake and lodged it into the center of his chest, the vines spiraling inwards and infecting the vampire instantaneously.  George did not hesitate one bit and quickly used his cutlass that was sheathed on his belt and took off the parasite’s head in one quick stroke.  The head bobbled for a minute, the next moment the head dismembered from the rest of the torso.  Edward backed up panting a bit with George clapping his shoulder.

               “You okay there, Eddie?”

               “Once again, my name is Edward.  Why do you Yankees shorten everything.  It is so rustic not even civilized,” Edward grimaced as he brought out another stake from his backpack.

               “I don’t know.  I guess it’s a sign of friendship and admiration.  Once we get to know a person and we spend most of the time around them, we consider them family,” George smirked.  Edward smiled back and understood his companion.  They had been through thick and thin together, not just in the slaughter of these undead vermin but going to taverns in the midnight hours, curtailing through the London square where George was introduced to Big Ben, how they basically became flat mates just in the span of a year.  George had become more like a collegiate brother, like the one who you made friends with on the first day of a fraternity order where they would either accept you in the ranks or you’re back to the dormitories.

               George brought out the lantern from Edward’s backpack and took out a German Luger and placed it in his friend’s other hand making sure if they sent one of their guard dogs who were mostly human just like them that he was able to defend himself.  George dug out his kukri from the bag as well then noticed something in the corner of the building behind a column.  A shadowy figure peering in and out of focus with bright blue eyes.  He saw the shadowy figure go towards the waist, possibly his belt as he heard a shot ring out that echoed throughout the mausoleum.

               “You should take your affairs elsewhere, hunters.  Or maybe you want to die a slow painful death,” another voice shouted from the darkened confines of the corridor speaking in Spanish, a foreign language that George did not understand.  Edward quickly ran over behind one of the crypts and George pushed open an empty casket and knelt behind it.  Edward shouted over to his friend, “They said they’ll kill us nice and slow if we don’t turn back.”  Coming from a formal education at Oxford, the school in which he attended and found the eccentric Dr. Carter, he was well versed in languages of the world.  Countless hours spent studying practical philanthropy and applied biology made him an excellent candidate for an internship under the guidance of Dr. Carter.  Over the years he became much more than a credited professor, he became his mentor and a dear friend.  Under his tutelage he read up on ancient cultures, more specifically Egyptian and Sumerian.  From that field of study, he learned many languages spanning Eastern and African tribes, Spanish had been very similar, and Edward was a quick learner who absorbed his studies much like a graduate student.

               George leaned out from the casket taking a quick shot from his cattleman.  Edward peaked over the crypt and saw the shadowy man behind the column fall flat on his back.  A dead shot straight to the man’s ribs had been marked and executed.  “That’s what I figured.  Why don’t you tell the other one to put down his rifle before I put one right between his eyes,” George shouted back at his friend.  He could have easily taken the shot growing up in the plains of southern Indiana, he was used to putting down buck and wild mustangs in the fields.  His father taught him the simple facets of farm life, how to fish, to skin a squirrel carcass if you were ever caught in the wilderness with only your buoy knife to give you solace.  His homestead was once infiltrated by one of these infested b******s, but cowardice was a fool’s errand.  He remembered when he was younger, he wanted to be a blacksmith, to forge iron in the caste to make horseshoes, to roll the lead to make hollow points to which him and his brother would hunt fawn in the local prairie.  His brother who he confronted once was the smart one out of the two, collegiate bound and highly intelligent.  George was the exact opposite, quick on his feet, wise talker, and knew how to take out an a confederate soldier from close to fifty yards using nothing but a spread-shot from a blunderbuss.  Of course, he was sarcastic and headstrong, but even when he was child his uncles would tell them “You got mother’s heart, boy.”

               George lost his patience and ran out from behind the casket.  Edward offered blind fire as he took a shot from the Luger which only grazed the top of the column, a stray shot.  But it gave George enough time to get the jump on the other guard dog or blood hound, whatever George thought of he was nothing but a henchman for the undead.  George brought out his buoy knife from the strap on his belt and tackled the Spaniard hiding behind the column.  He dragged the bodyguard up and held the knife up to his trembling throat.  Only gibberish came out from the captor’s terrified mouth.

               “Hang on there, cowboy.  Not yet.”  Edward stuffed the Luger in his striped pants pocket.  He rummaged inside of his buttoned-down shirt and brought out a Spanish embroidered cross that was fastened to his neck, “He’s saying that he must obey his master.  If he doesn’t, he will discipline him again.  I think he might be afraid to die, George.”  The cowboy behind the Spaniard kept the knife to his throat and even though he could have easily opened his jugular, he breathed heavily and relaxed.  He was not going to allow his callousness to cloud his judgment.  Not like the last time when all three of them, him, Edward and Dr. Carter almost died from infestation aboard a shipping freighter.  Out of all the stupid decisions he made, that night was the worst.  He deliberately let his emotions get the best of him when he accidentally opened the cargo hold, letting out a small herd of them, exactly seven of this infested spawn to harbor down upon all three of the dedicated hunters.  Unbeknownst to George there had been two guard dogs among the small pack which went after the much older Dr. Carter.  They got the jump on the small band when they wounded Dr. Carter right in the shoulder with pocket knives.  Luckily the three of them made it out alive and Edward managed to aid the 60-year-old doctor after their encounter. 

               Edward methodically explained to the Spaniard captive as George held him stationary at knife point, he wasn’t going anywhere.  In the captive’s own native language, George could only make out a couple of words that he learned in their travels across the Southern part of Europe in their trek to finding out the ‘progenitor of this strain’ as Dr. Carter instructed them.  He caught ear of some words such as ‘home,’ ‘escape,’ ‘coven,’ and the one that stood out to George was ‘mother.’  Edward walked over to George’s side to explain something to him, “He said he was promised salvation by his master.  He also claimed that his master was to reveal secrets to him if he protected this place, to give his life for a higher purpose.”

               “Well why don’t you ask him what does my brother has anything to do with this?  What kind of plan that he has in mind or maybe what kind of hell on earth he is going unleash?”  George was losing his patience as he dragged the knife closer to his Adam’s apple with a little trickle of blood oozing out.  The captive winced from the sharp pain induced, “Or maybe he should just give up the one he serves before my hand starts to have a mind of his own.”

               Once again Edward spoke in the Spaniards language, this time around George could not understand a word that he uttered.  But this time the Spaniard indulged in a full-blown conversation as George listened to them back and forth.  Intermittently Edward stopped several times to speak with George, “He’s giving up THIS coven willingly.  He’s saying there’s a part of him that misses his family…his sister and his mother…he’s not completely under their influence yet…he says their power stretches far and wide…across the Mediterranean Sea…well into the land of sands and dunes…”

               “Sounds a lot like the African isles, possibly Israel or maybe something further east of that.  Edward, translate what I’m saying to him,” George uttered waiting for Edward to continue their conversation.  Edward started to talk to him again and just as once the guard dog was going to give up a route bearing south from the Mediterranean into the country of Turkey into Russian providences, one the undead jumped in and tackled the Spaniard captive to the ground.  This caught George by surprise as he backed away and Edward stared down in horror as he watched the vampire gouge at the captive’s neck.

               George, with his buoy knife in his hand went for the creature’s back hoping he could immobilize the vermin.  But the vampire’s strength caught him off guard and an elongated arm swatted him away and threw him back against the wall.  The last thing George heard as his head came swatting back against the wall was Edward screaming, “It’s one of them…the evolved ones…”  and that was when George’s world went black.  Suddenly, a blunderbuss went off ringing loudly in the mausoleum, its shot spread widely as the vampire keeled over from its gaping wound.  Dr. Carter stood at the entrance nearing the corridor with the blunderbuss in hand, steam escaping through the empty chamber.  Edward ducked when he heard the echo of the widened shot, and his stake fell to the floor.  The vampire coiled and began to claw its way to somewhere safe.

               “Well, it was about time you should up,” Edward spoke aloud sounding like his passed-out friend, “I was worried that we would not be strong enough to take on the master of this coven.”  Dr. Carter waltzed inside with a dignified poise.  His stature was tall and lanky, no longer was he wearing his usual overcoat but an embroidered cloth vest with a vestige tie, a pocket watch strung around from one pocket to the next, but it was no ordinary watch, secretly it held an aerosol spray that contained an incense mixture of dog rose petals and monkshood.  The vampire scurried around in pain; his one long arm that looked like a bat talon combined with a wolf’s claw scratched the cement floor.  Dr. Carter began to reload the blunderbuss not by the usual stuffing of lead pellets into the chamber, instead a syringe attached to the end with a permeated liquid injection flowed into the central chamber of its unloading mechanism. 

               “Ella me prometio vida despues de la Muerte!”  The Spaniard spouted loudly as he clung on to life just a little longer.  Dr. Carter approached the creature hesitantly as he readied another shot from the blunderbuss just in case the undead had any more dirty tricks up their sleeves.  Edward ran over to George and pulled out a vial of smelling salts running it underneath his nose.  Instantly George woke up and touched the back of his head, it felt like a steam powered train knocked him back on the rails.  “What the hell just happened?”

               “You got knocked out, friend.  Here let me help you up,” Edward grabbed a hold of his shoulders and pulled him up straightly.  George, still in a daze and a little woozy from the overpowered creature sat down on one of the tombs that adorned the mausoleum.  It had been more like a crypt of some violent viral circus of undead nightmares.  Only then it appeared to George that this was not a place where the dead could sleep soundly, but a tomb in which these creatures inhabited.  The stench was repugnant, and Edward examined his friend, giving him a sip of water from a canteen and sporting a cold washcloth across his forehead.       

        

               “No…not that…the flask…whiskey…”  Edward laughed at his friend’s persistence and gave George his American steel flask from the backpack.  George sat there leaning backwards taking a nice gulp and his exhalation came out as a grunt.  Edward knew his partner which became a close friend of his even after only coming to meet him two years ago.  He reached for his coat pocket and pulled out a f*g, or what these Yankees called a cigarette, it was all those pet names most Americans gave simple trinkets and placed one in George’s mouth.  His friend nodded graciously, and he sparked a match on the cement tomb he sat upon, “Now that’s more like it.  Thanks Eddie.”  Edward clapped the back of George’s shoulder giving a sign of reassurance.

               Edward moved quickly to unsheathe a wooden stake from his side and Dr. Carter had the undead varmint in sight with the blunderbuss aimed at center mass just in case this damned creature evolved something else.  Dr. Carter hovered over the vampire as he spoke in plain English, “What did this monstrosity tell you, Edward?”

               Edward spoke to his esteemed colleague, “One of henchmen was giving us information that led us into Turkey, possibly a trade route into Russian homelands.  Then one of the elders decided to kill him.  I don’t think he wanted information to be given out willingly.”

               “It is definitely an evolved type of spawn.  Possibly the master of this pesky hive.  One that holds power over these others,” Dr. Carter looked around at two men that were dead.  They had been human, and he knew that his student and the cowboy did their jobs exactly as they were instructed.  He holstered his rifle and knelt beside the vampire who coiled up into the fetal position.  The spread shot damaged the creature’s chest cavity, and Dr. Carter knew that wolfsbane and atvium sativum poisoned the mutated vampire.  Edward had the hawthorn stake at the ready and George sat there holding the washcloth on his forehead eyeing the vampire, all he wanted was to watch it suffer and writhe in endless pain. 

               The vampire began to speak as his eyes glazed into pale black orbs.  George saw this once before with a human that had been at least seven feet tall, recently turned, that protected a cemetery that he sanctified back in America.  Just like Dr. Carter told him and Edward theorized that some of these creatures but not all of them could mutate into other monsters due to genetic patterns previously existing from when they were once human.  Apparently, Edward’s scientific analysis had been proven right.  Edward began to speak to the creature in Spanish and Dr. Carter brought out a syringe from a doctor’s satchel that hung from his shoulder.  The wise professor brought out a vial of sodium thiopental and injected the changing vampire directly into his neck cavity.

               “He’s giving us something, Carter,” Edward knelt next to the doctor, his stake still in hand just as precaution if the vampire decided to mutate into a different form or possibly make a run for it, “He is speaking of the mother…of the prophecy given to George back in London.  I asked him if her location was on an African island, but he told me no.  He said something in a more Arabic dialect maybe Mesopotamian, but it’s hard to make out.  He keeps on repeating over and over ‘I was a weak man, but she made me faster.’”

               “There is a high probability that he could have a close relationship to the progenitor.  We are still very far from the truth of the matter.  Every coven we disassemble we are another step closer to revealing the origin of their species’ location.  But it seems to me every time we eradicate these parasites all we are given is riddles to another location and then to another.  Their origin is more delved in mystery than I could ever imagine.  Perhaps we will find the progenitor, perhaps we will never know.  There is a possibility we may never know, and this rabid strain of mob mentality will never truly be revealed.”

               “Not so fast, Silas,” George stammered as he gained his composure rising from his sitting position on the tomb, “He may be speaking in Spanish.  But you said he was going from one language to another,” George walked over to where the two huddled around the creature who was beginning to turn black and blue in the face.  George knew that their herbs and poisons were working based on his body shaking from the poison of the plant-based chemicals, “He was going back and forth in riddles.  My father was Irish, and my mother was German.  This b*****d threw out some Irish slang only spoken in Dublin.  It’s where my ancestors came from before embarking on the America’s when the first settlers pioneered into Tennessee before residing in the Indiana plains.”

               George kneeled before the creature and its head tilted away from his cattleman pointed at his head.  The contortions grew violent as he brought out the protestant cross from around his neck.  He knew it wasn’t the symbol itself that the vampire reacted to but something within the confines of the hollowed-out silver made the undead react to it as if swatting at a hornet’s nest.  George began to speak and the vampire began to gurgle and foam at the mouth holding an intricate conversation with the passionate cowboy. 

               Dr. Carter examined thoroughly what was happening to the creature, “Apparently it is something in your family heirloom that nosferatu despises so much, it lashes out in frustration.  Notice how the creature’s teeth are retreating into the recesses of its jugular.”

               Edward stared at the creature dumbfounded, “Doctor!  Why are the teeth disappearing into its mouth?  And what is that…just one…just one fang?”

               “George whatever that cross is made of you are bringing something out of the creature that maybe should not be revealed!”  Dr. Carter brought out a large metallic stake made of cast iron and backed up in hesitation.

               From all the Irish that his father taught him and his brother and his sister, he spoke thoroughly with tremendous intensity.  Dr. Carter and Edward’s eyes narrowed in on George as neither of them could translate coming out of the Yankee’s mouth.  And when all was said and done, George’s mouth dropped in absolute horror and the vampire thrashed around as it was tormented by some type of external spirit that could not be seen, “Hold him down now!”  George bellowed as his arms came to strangle the damned thing.  Edward put all his weight on the tossing and turning vampire.  Being only a couple years older than George but not as strong as him the creature began to transform.

               Dr. Carter brought down the cast iron stake, but the vampire swatted the object away as if it was as light as a fly swatter.  The vampire contorted more with two vertebrae extending from his back and propping him upwards.  The two mandibles unfolded from his shoulder blades and sprouted wings that were in the form of a bat.  “Don’t let the creature take flight!”  Edward shouted.  George unloaded his cattleman but when the creature’s piercing long arm gripped his hand, the silver bullet grazed the side of one of the engorging wings that eventually became like leather and large flaps emerged.  His one long fang went for George, but Silas Carter knocked the creature’s head back with the underside of the blunderbuss.

               The vampire turned around and kicked off its hooves, which were once feet, but mutated into something resembling that of one of the many horses he and his brother tamed back on his homestead.  His long arm pushed off the Englishman named Edward who tried to wrestle him back to the ground but failed, its other arm transformed into a clawed-shaped appendage and sliced widely nicking George in the arm.  Blood splattered on the cement floor and the vampire chuckled snarling at the fearless hunter.  The three of them knew they were not going to win this fight, not by a long shot.  Its body curtailed under its own weight as it sprouted a foot in height almost instantly and as soon George lunged at him with his buoy knife the vampire leapt upward.

               The creature’s wings spread outright and opened wide.  Its arms came up above his head and pressed on the ceiling of the mausoleum.  The ceiling cracked and gave way sending slabs of concrete upon the three men who seemed like ants watching the hill tumble to the ground.

               “The ceiling is going to cave in on all of us!”  Dr. Carter yelled at the other two.

               “That’s kind of obvious.  We’re all going to end up like the Romans at the siege of Pompeii!”  Edward shouted as he began to run towards the entrance.

               “Every man for himself.  Let’s get the hell out of here.  Next round at the tavern is on me!”  George did not hesitate and pushed Dr. Carter towards the entrance, leaving all the equipment behind in the process.

               The three men narrowly escape with an inch of their lives still intact.  The last one out was George who had some concrete land on his left shoulder, but he barely felt it as the adrenaline tore through the pain.  Dr. Carter huffed and puffed as he stared back at the mausoleum and Edward came to a screeching halt.  Starting to pace back and forth he started to cuss and swear.  George still was holding his cattleman and raised it above in the air.  The three of them noticed the vampire take flight and Dr. Carter eyes widened in amazement, “Extraordinary.  Pure unadulterated mutation in its finest form.”

               The vampire was no longer human but a full-fledged bat out of hell.  At first the creature hovered over the mausoleum, circling around its previous habitation.  George noticed it acted like the vampire he once killed back in the cemetery, protecting its environment.  Dr. Carter analyzed its patterns intricately, studying how the once human no longer with sentience but obeyed animalistic impulses as if a bee was being called back to the honeycomb.  Edward finally seized in his ranting and looked upon the vampire staring back into his own eyes but not attacking him personally as if he was warding off some kind of intruder who knocked open the door but dare attack him due to some type of defense mechanism.  The vampire howled in laughter as it circled the ruined and destroyed mausoleum as the three men just stood there gazing the vampire bat all with different intentions.

               The vampire cackled and spoke directly to George, but it was not in English but in Irish mixed with a little German.  Edward turned to his friend and placed a hand on his shoulder, “It’s going to be alright.”  The vampire with his migrating patterns acting like a bird perched upon the dilapidated mausoleum vestibule and glared down at the three men.  Sweat permeated the air that came off as a fowl stench to the creature and it shook its head back and forth as if to warn the three that they knew too much.  Especially the man named George on the right, its ultraviolet gaze shown brightly as the moon behind the creature.  Its blackened and bruised skin blistered and peeled.  His wings flicked off the moisture from the night and its head reared backwards into a final howl.  George raised his cattleman up high and pulled the trigger, but no shot landed.  Its legs retracted back, its knees broke into a jumping pattern, and it lunged upward.  The vampire took its final flight and flew off into the evening clouds. 

               “What did the vampire tell you, George?”  Dr. Carter came to his side making sure the Yankee was in good condition.

               “There were no riddles this time.  Whatever my cross is made from, whatever lies dormant inside of it, I think it frightened him so much that he revealed his secrets to me,” George explained as best as he could.

               “What were they?  Anything we can interpret to understand?” Edward gathered his countenance together as he looked upon the wreckage before them.  He wondered if he could salvage some of their equipment or at least find his backpack amongst the decayed concrete.

               “Ancient lands far as the eye can see.  That’s what he said.  Egypt.  That’s what he told me.  That is where we are going to find her.

               Dr. Carter eyes looked perplexed and took out his pocketbook hurriedly, “What do you mean her?  What exactly did this manifestation say?”

               “He revealed to me that she was some sort of ancient queen.  A harbinger of death.  A bringer of destruction.  An ancient goddess from time’s past.  She views us as pests like locusts.  Her plan…her vision…is a perfect world.  One that is supremely hers and hers alone.  It would be the queen and her kind running the whole thing.  Hands inside of every facet of life…of every nook and cranny upon this earth.  She sees us humans as insects.  Something that she could harvest and bleed out until there is none of us left.  Every coven that we have come across from one to the next, she resurrects and establishes each one.  It is not just cemeteries but industries and establishments.  She places her covens in places like this to recruit and to dictate who is loyal and dedicated like a candidate for admission.  The others, the rest of us…we are just disposable.  Humans that could easily be bled out to pacify them and trained.  Almost like rehabilitation for human dignity.

               “The vampire spoke about how she wants souls.  Not just any souls, but unique ones.  The ones with twisted morals who are misguided.  People who have ulterior motives…hidden agendas.  She could see inside of mankind’s souls.  It’s kind of hard to explain, but she does it telepathically.  She could only collect it through the blood but talking about it now, Dr. Carter, it doesn’t make sense.  She knows who she wants to be turned and brought into her conquest…beforehand.  Almost like it is predestined.  Those who are supremely aligned with her, she turns them to be more powerful than the others.  This is when the creature mentioned my brother.  He told that me that my family lineage and bloodline is special for some odd reason.  The vampire said only the queen knows of our birthright and she turned my brother when we were well above the age of puberty.  She cannot take anyone in their adolescence, and she needed my brother.  The vampire said my brother was at the proper age and she got to him before he became a man.”

               Dr. Carter looked astounded and perturbed, “Your family must indeed be special or have some dormant innate abilities.  You have a cross made out from a composition I must analyze further, maybe this the key to destroying her origins.  Perhaps it contains a little bit of her inside.” As the three of them headed down the hill to the mausoleum George held the cross in his hands and Edward looked down upon it.

               “And this vampire told you all of this within the span of only a couple of minutes?  Edward questioned George as he took the cross in his own hand rubbing the outside of the silver edges.  He scrambled to remove his glasses only to peer at the cross further.  Something must be unlocked inside of it, or it could be made from some compound not recorded in any biology book.

               “Not entirely he only told me what I needed to know for the moment.  The other half he told me came through in a series of visions.  It was almost as if he was talking to me in my head.  It was all jumbled together like a series of photos in a picture show or a theater.  I saw her…the queen upon an altar of skull and bones…with death all around her…there were some people both turned and mortal kneeling before her…and it seemed as if she was talking to me directly…through him.  Like I said it’s so hard to explain.”

               “Then my theory is correct,” Dr. Carter stated as they started heading towards their carriage that was at the located at the entrance of the cemetery.  The carriage had been rented from the local towns trader, and Dr. Carter did not even record their belongings when he registered their luggage.  Not all of their equipment was lost in the destruction of the mausoleum, other weapons and mostly importantly rations and water that they needed for their continuing conquest, “This supports that hive mentality I have been studying …they can speak to each other not just using their mouths but intravenously through some sort of telepathic link.  Apparently, you caught some of that, it must have leaked out through his cerebral capillary and trickled down into you.  There is a possibility it is tied to your family, perhaps its blood related…”  Dr. Carter walked bristly up to the carriage and brought out a series of books, “Maybe your father or your mother have some heightened senses, was any of your relatives prone to migraines or hallucinations?”

               “My father never told me jack.  I come from mostly humble farmers, ship navigators and deckhands…at least I think so.  My grandmother remembered the Salem Witch trials back in the early days when she was a young woman, but she was only an onlooker and never participated.  Otherwise, most of my lineage led peaceful solitary lives either out in the frontier or stockyards.  My grandfather was a wilderness tracker, he fought in the French and Indian battle, afterwards he was decorated war hero.  And his father before that was a frontiersman, one of the early pioneers that remembered the revolution of the colonies.  He helped Washington’s spy ring at the siege of Pawtucket as a marksman.  Most of my uncles died from malaria and scarlet fever when it hit most of the states after the civil war.  My mother’s side is more mysterious, she never talked about her parents that much.  The only thing she ever mentioned was they were Quakers from Montanna.”

               “Maybe you were chosen for something.  Or perhaps your brother…” Edward laughed as he made sure some of the gear was still on the carriage, fondling through their rations container, putting some bows and spears behind a white laden blanket, and unwrapping a slice of unleavened bread that he handed to George.

               “That’s the thing that worries me.  I don’t think it is me personally,” George said which made Dr. Carter tilt his head towards him and Edward glanced up from his labor, “The vampire said one last thing when he was resting on the perch.  He told me I had a niece…my brother’s daughter.  I never knew he had one.”

               “Hold on for a second, George.  No two vampires could mate and have a child, it is biologically impossible,” Dr. Carter belted out.

               “Which could only mean one thing…” Edward explained before being interrupted.

               “That her mother was a human.  And she might be the first human vampire or vampire human to have ever been born,” George just stood there silently with a haphazard frown on his face knowing there was someone out there who he was related to that was not of this earth.  The thought lasted with him all the way until they made their way to the town’s inn, which gave him unwavering nightmares until the sun came out the following morning.

               The following day Dr. Carter made arrangements inside a nearby shipping harbor.  The remaining gear, weapons, and rations were loaded onto the carrier.  Edward peered at all the people aboard the large ship and for the first time he saw the lush blue waves of the Mediterranean.  Dr. Carter made sure that their equipment was concealed by forging false signatures aboard the manifest, no one, not even the lonely deck hand scrubbing suds on the wooden floorboards would notice a thing.  George wrote a letter to his friend who became a minister back in Indiana, and he visited the local mail service earlier in the day.  They told George it would take a week until the message was delivered to America.  Even the mail carrier asked for a return address if another letter was relayed back to him.  George did not say anything, knowing full well that the letter would suffice.  The three embarked upon the monolithic ship and set sail due east.  The next stop to safe harbor was Istanbul to pick up a load of rare earth metals.  Of course, Dr. Carter was wary and wanted to investigate such intricacies.  George smirked and shook his head knowing sometimes a package is just a package, nothing more, nothing less.  But that was when a burgeoning thought came to mind of what he wrote down in the letter.

               “Dear Mark,

               “You were right about your inquiry to London.  Dr. Carter is eccentric and unorthodox, but he has taught me so much within the span of only a year.  His assistant Edward in that time has become a close friend.  I hope the southern plains serve you well because I know it will be winter there soon.  Just make sure all grain and corn stalks are sheathed, all the cattle and livestock have their feed for the fall months.  But this is not why I’m writing.  I found something out here in Europe.  I have traveled south of London’s border, graced the luscious lands of Paris, drank inside of Ireland’s sinkhole taverns (their ale is much different than ours…more bitter), tasted the finest wine and over-the-table liquor in Poland (they call it vodka and it is much stronger than whiskey), and ate big feasts in dankest inns in all of Germany (they make these edible meat with potatoes dish that I garnered the recipe from a local butcher.)

               We also made our way through the beautiful city of Venice and finally saw the Sisteen chapel which was probably one of the most beautiful sights I ever saw.  When we were down by the coast in a small town called Calabria, I met a fine young woman.  Oh, what a woman she is and not too hard on the eyes either.  We spent a month down there and every waking minute when I was not harbored down on this perilous journey, we would meet up.  She is something else; we would have long conversations each in our respective languages and because she is well educated from an academy, she speaks English so we could understand each other.  We ate and dined, spent a couple nights looking up at the night sky, and had these desserts called cannoli’s that her mother made by a nearby river.  I told her stories about the frontier at home, where I came from, how I grew up, and she in return told me stories about her family, how she was raised, that she wants to travel and be an interpreter.  Both of us shared some amazing moments together, and some other things I should not mention in this letter.  If I ever come back home, I met send away for her and bring her back to the Indiana plains.  Who knows, if that happens, I might wed her one day and make her my wife.  But that is a story for another time, Mark.

               Now on to more pressing matters.  Dr. Silas Carter, Edward Redgrave, his assistant and I are now bounding towards the Russian coast.  We have detected and taken out at least ten covens in our travels.  With every one we extinguish I find myself closer to the truth.  Dr. Carter has theorized there must be an origin for this madness, his assistant analyzes their patterns and investigates their breeding grounds.  Mark…old friend…these creatures of the night are not as we discovered in America.  They are intelligent and swift, cunning and ferocious.  There is a method to their madness and what we discovered in America was only the beginning.  They act like insects carrying out orders and instructions, and each one these covens…these nests, as Mr. Redgrave has described in his last letter to you…are all connected to each other. 

               All these nests lead up into a much bigger beehive.  They behave and act like cannibals…like mindless parasites all sucking like leeches that have a mysterious origin.  Dr. Carter calls it ‘the progenitor of their species’ and I am going to expose it and destroy it.  Yesterday I had a vision of their queen.  I believe this to be the mother of their species, and she will not stop until this world belongs to her.  She places her sentries and drones into all fathoms of civilization, not just cemeteries and tombs and mortuaries.  I believe she has her ilk into colleges and universities, to doctor’s parlors and inn keeps, to churches and seminary schools, to the priest’s praying high masses down to a minister’s last sermon, to lawyers who are building up firms and to landowners who purchase the vacant and empty lots.  Not just in the open wilderness of the Indiana plains but to bustling metropolis of New York, to New Orleans free spirited bayou coast town, to the skyscrapers being constructed in the streets of Chicago, to the Boston harbor that brings in sprouting businesses, and even to California coast which I heard they have turned into a grand city due to the recent gold rush.

               I believe she wants all of this, and she will not sleep and not rest till she has it all.  From the Americas to ancient China, from west to east and back again.  We are still on our trek into the Russian territories.  Who knows if more answers could be revealed to me in due time.  The closer I get to finding out their origin…finding out about her…these images I keep seeing in my head.  I know I am close, that we are all close to exposing this network of covens and nests.  I hope one day this can all be over.  I will do anything to see this queen and her kind exterminated off the face of this Earth.  I just sure hope when the day comes, that if I have any children of my own, they don’t have endure this darkness.”

               Sincerely, George O’ Rourke

 

In relay to:     Pastor Mark Harmon

Cedar Lake, Indana

Westerfield Parishioner Church

Date sent:         September the 28^th of the year 1878

Perceived:        between October 10^th to 13^th of the year 1878

Received:          

…Current address: unlisted…

…Supposed property owner: undocumented…

                              …Occupancy of residence: Foreclosure of abandonment…

                              …Redirect purported letter: Next of kin // Available Relatives // Other…

                              …Forwarded: unavailable information…

 

 

 

LETTER DOCUMENTED - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CURRENT PERSON(s): DECEASED

CURRENT REGISTERED LETTERER: DECEASED

DATE SENT TO REGISTRY: September 20, 1947

DATE FILED: August 19, 1965

DATE UNDER REVIEW: April 28, 2008

DATE DISCLOSED TO RECIPEINT: October 13, 2052

AVAILABLE RECIPIENTS: 0

…forwarding message…

AVAILABLE NEXT OF KIN(s): 1

MESSAGE READ: September 13, 2052

MESSAGE REVIEWED: January 19, 2055

MESSAGE TERMINTED: October 15, 2057

MESSAGE REVIEWED BY:     [redacted]…classified information…

 

Written 9/13/24 to 9/14/24

Author's Note

What did you think of the story? How do you like the characters? Did you like the mystery that I wrote? How do you feel the open-ended letter at the end that leads to an unforseen future?